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Is Ricky Nixon innocent, naive, or foolish?

1st May, 2011
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Roar Guru
1st May, 2011
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3986 Reads

Ricky NixonFor a man who has weathered his fair share of media storms while managing the AFL’s biggest names, Ricky Nixon seemed all at sea in last night’s interview on Channel Seven’s Sunday Night program.

Nixon, of all people, should be sufficiently media savvy to handle a combative interviewer.

Yet he seemed unable or unwilling to defuse some tense situations and an argumentative line of questioning during the interview.

Given he spent the best part of twenty years ensuring that the mistakes of the players he managed were presented in the best possible light by the media, I was surprised that Nixon was not a much more polished media performer.

In fact, I’m still unsure exactly why Nixon agreed to be interviewed.

If he hoped that he would get a fair hearing, and that the interview might engender support from the viewing public, then he will be sorely disappointed.

Nixon came across as highly strung, irritable, and was notably evasive when asked some important questions.

Despite recognising his error in going to the hotel room of the young lady who has become known as the “St Kilda Schoolgirl,” Nixon felt that the episode did not warrant the media attention it has been given.

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Nixon would have been well aware of the type of questions he was likely to be asked during the interview, yet seemed angry when the hard questions were posed to him.

Maybe he was unhappy that the interviewer wasn’t more sympathetic to his plight. But was there much to be sympathetic about?

By his own admission Nixon seriously erred when he went into the hotel room of the young lady, claiming it was the biggest mistake of his life.

While he denied ever taking drugs or having a sexual relationship with the young woman, Nixon did make some startling admissions which reflect poorly on him.

Nixon admitted to sending “a substantial amount of text messages” to the young lady, as well as commenting to her that he would check his phone later one night when he was “on top of her.”

Attempting to pass off this comment as a joke is, in itself, laughable, and completely indefensible given Nixon is forty-seven (and married) and the woman in question was seventeen at the time.

Given the fact that Nixon has seen players under his management make poor decisions over and over again, he was better placed than almost anyone else in the football industry to recognise a situation which would ultimately lead to no good, and yet he failed to do so.

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Not only did Nixon fail to see this, but he put himself in a compromising position by conversing often with her via text message, engaging in sexual banter with her, and going to her hotel room.

Maybe Nixon was truly naïve, and simply didn’t recognise the compromised position that he had placed himself in, and the inevitable media storm which it would create?

Maybe Nixon suffered from the same Superman Complex as some of the players he has managed in the past, and believed that nothing bad would come from his actions, or that he would never get caught.

Neither of these are particularly good excuses.

Putting the allegations of drug-taking and sexual misconduct to one side, Nixon has made plenty of poor decisions in his dealings with the young lady based only on what he confirmed within the interview, yet sadly didn’t seem to be able to fully recognise this.

Just how many poor decisions Nixon made in his dealings with the young lady remains to be seen, but the public interest in his plight and that of the young lady seems set to continue for some time to come.

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